Artsakh President Arayik Harutyunyan today dismissed Ruben Vardanyan from the post of state minister.

Harutunyan announced the news during a government cabinet session and thanked Vardanyan for his efforts to supervise the government’s response to the ongoing blockade of the Lachin Corridor.

Harutyunyan, during his remarks, didn’t specify why he dismissed Vardanyan, only saying the move is in the best interests of Artsakh.

“In order not to exhaust the resistance level of all of us and the state, in all aspects, I have made a decision to release Ruben Vardanyan from the position of state minister,” Harutyunyan said.

Harutyunyan stressed that his decision to dismiss Vardanyan wasn’t a response to Azerbaijan’s criticism of Vardanyan as an impediment to the settlement of the Karabakh issue.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, at the Munch Security Conference last week, said he’s ready to talk with Karabakh’s Armenians if Vardanyan leaves the region.

Aliyev, last year, ridiculed Vardanyan’s appointment as state minister describing him as “Moscow’s man sent to Karabakh who’s stolen billions from the Russian people".

Vardanyan, in response, said he’s qualified, on behalf of Karabakh Armenians, to negotiate a settlement of the Artsakh issue with Azerbaijan.

Rumors of Vardanyan’s dismissal increased recently, with many in Armenian government circles voicing concerns that Vardanyan had consolidated too much power in Artsakh and had eclipsed Harutyunyan as the country’s spokesman on the international arena.

Last September, Vardanyan, best known for establishing the UWC Dilijan College, the Idea Foundation and the Armenia 2020 project, announced that he’d renounced his Russian citizenship and planned to move to Artsakh to create a social movement to save what remains in Armenian hands following the 2020 Artsakh war.